With time every city's skyline changes. The vintage old buildings are replaced with shiny new skyscrapers. The architecture evolves along with people's lifestyles. Similarly, the retail face of New York City, or any city for that matter, has changed drastically.
Those mom and pop stores that were the heart of the market hustle in earlier times have almost disappeared. Yes, a few of them still exist but have lost their lustre. Chain stores, supermarkets and online shopping have driven that old grocery shop almost to extinction. Perhaps it is just a matter of a few more months (or years if we are lucky) that the existing ones close their shutters, permanently.
In an effort to preserve and pay a tribute to the oldest and most popular mom n pop stores, Randy Hage, a casual photographer and a TV and Film scale artist has recreated some popular stores of New York city and cast them into plastic, resin, wood and metal!
The miniature models are 1/12th of the buildings' original sizes and capture every essence of the stores, right from the plastic garbage bins kept outside the shop to the billboards, posters and even the graffiti on the walls of those stores. At first look, they don't even look like miniature models - they are that realistic!
Take a look at all the models on his website, here.
Hage's work will be displayed at the Flower Pepper Gallery in October 2013. All the proceeds will go to the Rachel Ann Hage Neuro-Oncology Research Fund, in honor of Hage's daughter who passed away at age 4 due to a brain tumor.
Hage wrote to the Vanishing New York Blog:
"In 1998, I had started photographing New York City, and was about to start working on some New York inspired projects. This was shortly before our daughter became ill. For a few years following her passing, I put my project on hold, but continued to make trips to New York to photograph storefronts. I was strangely drawn to them, and was becoming ever aware of their rapid disappearance."
Check out a video where Hage talks about his work below:
Hage is not the only one who has been dedicating his time to the fast disappearing old mom n pop stores. James and Karla Murray published a book dedicated to the stores. Titled Store Front - The Disappearing Face of New York, the book illustrates some of the most beautiful pictures of the old stores shot with a 35mm camera (to retain the old school feel) and gives additional information about the stores (ex: opening and closing date etc.)
Check out some of the photos from the book, here.
